The world is being overcome by selfishness, materialism, disappearing morals and McDonald's, according to Rhodes University history Prof Julian Cobbing. “We live in a global corporate MacWorld,” he said at his fifth University of the Third Age (U3A) lecture on Thursday.
The world is being overcome by selfishness, materialism, disappearing morals and McDonald's, according to Rhodes University history Prof Julian Cobbing. “We live in a global corporate MacWorld,” he said at his fifth University of the Third Age (U3A) lecture on Thursday. “It comes down to the problems of the modern person, which we can analyse in four groups,” Cobbing said.
These issues are: technology and the media confusing children's natural development; a trend of narcissism that goes hand-in-hand with consumerism; the breaking up of family structures and high divorce rates that further increase adult narcissism and self-centredness; and the modern world's contaminated moral environment.
“Mothers and daughters have now become sisters, teachers are losing their control in schools, Coca-Cola is becoming the authority and it becomes extremely difficult for parents to properly teach their children right from wrong,” he said.
Here Cobbing discussed the emergence of a highly problematic word: 'excellence'. He said that this loose term has replaced 'good' and 'bad', which has led people to forget the effects their actions have on other people, so long as they can achieve excellence. “The amount of propaganda behind the term is immense, it's prevented us from distinguishing from good and evil,” he said.
Cobbing will continue this nine-part lecture series this Thursday at 10am in the St Andrew's Prep Mullins Room. Entrance costs R5 and they are open to the public. The remaining lectures will be on 30 August and 13, 20 and 27 September. The U3A is a self-learning group for retired people.
